A Picture of the Past

On an antiquities collectors' forum near you, Bron Lipkin asks for help identifying the original of a reproduction Greek coin ring that came into his hands (Jul 6 #96999 )

Can anyone here identify it? I've searched but can't find an exact match. As a replica is it perhaps just an approximation to a real coin type?

Cute. I really love the hair. Robert Kokotailo came up with what looks like the answer to the question (#97000)

The coin is a modern production. I have not found an exact match and I suspect one might not exist. The inscription reads LOKRON in Greek letters. The head is Demeter and the reverse is Ajax advancing left. If is trying to be a coin from Lokri Opuntii, loosely based on a silver hemi drachm of about 300 BC like this one from CNG e-auction 492, lot 120. Whoever made the one in the ring depicted Ajax from behind which was likely done out of a modern sense of modesty. At Lokri at that time Ajax is depicted from the front with his male attributes clearly in view. No Ancient Greek would have found anything offensive in this but it appears the modern maker thought some people might.

In the act of consuming archaeological evidence as "antiquities" the past is being distorted.

Demeter here looks like everybody's mother-in-law. I prefer the fake by far.



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